


let your torrent rest against my shore

by Silvereye



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21629428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvereye/pseuds/Silvereye
Summary: Simon and Alys have dinner.Set during Memory.
Relationships: Simon Illyan/Alys Vorpatril
Comments: 13
Kudos: 55
Collections: 300bpm Flash Exchange November 2019





	let your torrent rest against my shore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/gifts).



> Loosely based on "Tarnished Silver" by Heather Dale.

Simon likes the concert. He thinks he has listened to this composer before, in the privacy of his own apartment, but he cannot quite remember. It is hard to be worried about not remembering here, though. Lady Alys sits beside him and the music soars and Simon has not felt this peaceful for a long, long time.

They have dinner, afterwards, in a private room of a half-empty restaurant. Simon spots the nearest ImpSec kid assigned to keep an eye on them, but then he has had a lifetime of practice. Most people would not. He turns to Lady Alys who is eyeing him with a curious half-amused expression.

"Sorry," he says and smiles back. "Habit. Please tell me how the engagement preparations are proceeding." This room should be private enough for it.

She does. They both know he will only remember scarce details tomorrow, if that, but then Simon is fairly certain very few people could remember all of it without a memory chip. Managing the Emperor's social life is no less a job than managing Imperial Security.

Strange, how they have been two sides of a... not a coin perhaps, but a die, for all these years. They got the jobs by being the closest more or less qualified people around, but they have done well.

Wine arrives. It is something dark and rich from the southern coast. He has not drunk anything like it before. That, he would remember even now.

"I must note down what wine this is," he says.

"Agreed," she says. "I will have to buy some. Several bottles."

"One for the road?" he offers and Lady Alys laughs.

*

"I do not want to take you back to Vorkosigan House," Lady Alys says when it is fifteen minutes to the restaurant closing. She is a little inebriated, Simon thinks, and that makes her more direct than she would be anywhere else.

"Then don't," Simon says and immediately wishes he could take it back. That was too forward.

Lady Alys looks at him, smiling. "I cannot kidnap you. Ivan and Miles would get very upset. But we can drive around a bit before I must relinquish you."

They can. Lady Alys tells her driver to take a _very_ long route back. She doesn't switch on the lights in the groundcar and so the only illumination is the dim light from outside. He can see her silhouette like this, occasional sparkle of her dress, now and then a reflection from her eyes.

She takes his hand. Simon's heart nearly stops.

"Lady Alys," he manages to get out, and does not know what he would say next.

"Just Alys," she says. When he doesn't say anything she continues. "I have been thinking. ImpSec has had you for long enough, current problem or not. As for me, Laisa will take over most of my social duties as Gregor's nearest female relative. We have both lived enough for the Empire, Simon."

"Time to leave it to the next generation?" he says, trying to be light. He is a little over sixty. She is... a few years younger? Probably.

"Time to live for ourselves, Simon," she says, unsmiling but not quite grave.

She's looking at him, he can tell. She smells of a very expensive perfume and a little of the wine and a little of something Simon cannot name at all. He is very sure this is like nothing he ever imagined. He is still not quite sure this is not a dream. He must have dreamed something like this during all the lonely years.

Then he throws caution to the wind and kisses her. Her fingers tighten around his and she touches his cheek with her other hand and sighs something like "finally".

Fortunately they have a long time to go before they arrive at Vorkosigan House.


End file.
